RE· DEFINING IDYLLIC LOVE: GEORGE SAND'S INDIANA AS A RIGHTING

OF BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE'S PAUL ET VIRGINIE

by Syl vie L. F. Richards

"Les hommes naissent asiatiques. emopeens. fran~ais, anglais; Us sont cultivateurs, marchands, soldats; mais dans tout pays les femmes naissent, vivent. et meurent femme .... Ainsi les femmes n'appartiennent qu' au genre humain. Elles le rappellent sans cesse a l'humanite par leurs sentiments natw'els et meme par leurs passions" (Bernardin. Paul 58).

With this illustrative statement, Bemardin de Saint-Pierre defined women's roles in society in what he perceived to be a positive framework based upon natural law as understood in late eighteenth-century France. This understanding of gender roles formed the deep structure for his most influential, idyllic romance Paul et Virginie. Quicldy hailed as a classic, the novel would become the prototype for a generation of novel writers, including Aaubert whose Emma Bovary would become poisoned by the unrealistic love expectation found in Paul et Virginie, and by the lack of personal definition for women endemic in the society and confirmed by the novel's subtext. Aaubert would even name Mme. Aubain's children Paul and Virginie as an ironic twist in his 1876 short story Un ereUT simple.

For George Sand, the condition of woman as expressed by Bemardin was untenable. Indiana, her first independant novel, written under her new pen name, is a deliberate rewrite of Paul et Virginie. Not only does she compare her heroine with Virginie intratextually, Sand sets her novel on the tie Bourbon, about 400 miles east of Madagascar and southeast of l'tIe Maurice, the place occupied by Paul and Virginie. She al so borrowed many scenic details from Bemardin.

However, Indiana is mostly a re-righting of woman and her place in society. In her preface of 1832, George

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Sand explained the genesis of her main character: "Indiana, si vous voulez expliquer tout dans ce livre, c'est un type; c'est la femme, l'etre faible charge de representer les passions comprimees, ou, si vous l'aimez mieux, supprimees par les lois; c' est la volonte aux prises avec la necessite; c'est l'amour heurtant son front aveugle a tous les obstacles de la civilisation" (Sand, "Preface" 4) Her novel remedies some of the excesses expressed by Bemardin about women, while advancing the notion of women as distinct individuals burdened by the weight of societal laws and prejudices. This essay examines Sand's feminist perspective in light of prevailing social theories about women and the negative side of seemingly idyllic love.

Before we begin our excursus, we must examine the threads that link Bemardin, Sand, and Flaubert, for in this weave we will expose some interesting facts about Indiana heretofore undisclosed. In a letter dated April 3, 1876, Un creur simple is cast as Flaubert's own ironic interpretation of Paul et Virginie.l It was written "a l'intention exclusive" of Sand (Gevrey, 269), a potent reminder of the importance that Bemardin's text played for both writers. Flaubert's dedication to Sand demonstrates that he understood that she had also done a significant rewriting of Paul and Virginie. Though he does not mention Indiana, the textual traces among all three novels mark Indiana as the text in question.

Bemardin's story is centered on the shipwreck of the Saint-Geran. As Fran~oise Gevrey points out, Bemardin named the fictional captain of his Saint-Geran "le capitaine Aubin," the name that Flaubert will use as the source for the patronymic Aubain for his own Paul and Virginie in Un c(£ur simple. However, Gevrey and others do not make the connection that the real captain of the Saint-Geran was named Delamarre,2 Sand's patronym for Indiana Delmare.3

With regard to the name, Indiana, it is important to remember that the early editions of Paul et Virginie were often followed by Arcadie and La chaumiere indienne. According to James Vest, Sand had originally titled the work Noerni, which he mistakenly interprets as a reference to the

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biblical Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law, rather than as a feminized form of Noe, the father of a postdiluvian human race, with the potential of re-establishing another Edenic society. Sand's proposed title suggests a matriarchal rather than a patriarchal bloodline, a paradigm shift deeply rooted in her own psychological search for the ideal mother. The choice of Indiana over Noemi serves as an intertextual marker pointing once more to Bemardin (this time to La chaumiere indienne), in the same manner that Flaubert's choice of the Dame Felicire for his heroine in Un caur simple is a direct reference to Bemardin' s mistress, Felicite Didot, with whom he had two children named (what else?) Paul and Virginie. Moreover, the last words of Indiana are a direct reference to La chaumiere indienne: " .... souvenez-vous de notre chaumiere indienne."

Sand's idealized utopian life at the end of Indiana is also tied to Bernardin's little known work Arcadie. A reference to the Grecian idyll of innocence and happiness, Arcadia also had a special meaning for the Illuminists of the eighteenth century, of which Bemardin was a member: "On sait par exemple qu'il s'est battu pendant trente ans avec une obstination d'il1umine pour tenter d'imposer aux milieux scientifiques son etrange theorie des marees expJiquees par la fonte alternatives des glaces polaires" (Racault, 419). Arcadia was a code word for the secret societies of the eighteenth century and stood for the purported location in southern France where the Knights Templar (Cathars and Albigeois, also known as Les Purs and Les lnvisibles), under the leadership of Jacques de Molay, had buried their treasures, including the Grail, before being burned at the stake by the order of Philippe le Bel. Panofsky analyzes at length Nicolas Poussin's Et in Arcadia ego, which was widely believed by cabalists to hold a secret meaning about the location of that secret burial place. Bernardin's motivation to write a piece entitled Arcadia lies in the esoteric secret societies of the Illuminists of which he would become a part. Bemardin had served in the Seven Years' War in 1760 under the Illuminist Comte de Saint-Germain, a

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believer in esotericism who pretended to have lived for several centuries. In his work Les illumines, Nerval recounts the story of Saint-Germain and Cagliostro:4

Ces deux personnages ont ete les plus celebres cabalistes de la fin du XVille siecle. Le premier [Saint-Germain], qui parot a la cour de Louis XV et y jouit d 'un certain credit, grace a la protection de Mme de Pompadour .... s' occupait surtout de l'alchimie, mais ne negligeait pas les diverses parties de la science. 11 montra it Louis XV le sort de ses enfants dans un miroir magique, et ce roi fecula de terreur en voyant I' image du dauphin lui apparaitre decapitee.

Saint-Germain et Cagliostro s'etaient rencontres en Allemagne dans le Holstein, et ce fut, dit-on, le premier qui initi~ l'autre et lui donna les grades mystiques. A l'epoque Oll il fut initie, il remarqua lui-meme le celebre miroir qui servait pour I' evocation des ames.

Le comte de Saint-Germain pretendait avoir garde le souvenir d 'une foule d'existences anterieures, et racontait ses diverses aventures depuis le commencement du monde ....

Cagliostro, apres avoir ete initie par le comte de Saint-Germain, se rendit it Saint­Petersbourg, Oll il obtint de grands succes. (Nerval, 11: 1175-76)

Bemardin would follow the same path as Cagliostro after his initiation, spending 1762-63 in Holland and then Russia, where he found a patron in Catherine II, herself an enthusiast of the Illuminists. In 1764 he spent time in Poland as a secret agent. All of these events, strangely enough, are linked to the life and thinking of Sand.

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With her novel Indiana, Aurore Dupin signed her name for the first time as George Sand. It has often been said by critics, and myself, that Sand had shortened the name of her co-author on Rose et Blanche, Jules Sandeau. I propose that the name Sand was adopted in memory of an Dluminist, Karl Sand:

J' ai garde, moi, celui de I' assassin de Kotzebue qui avait passe par la tete de Delatouche et qui commen~a ma reputation en Allemagne, au point que je re~us des lettres de ce pays ou I' on me priait d' etablir ma parente avec Karl Sand, comme une chance de succes de plus. Malgre la veneration de la jeunesse allemande pour le jeune fanatique dont la mort fut si belle, j' avoue que je n' eusse pas songe a choisir pour pseudonyme ce symbole du poignard de l'illuminisme. (OA., 11: 139)

George Sand was the great-great-grand-daughter of Fred6ric Auguste de Saxe, later Auguste II" king of Poland. Her desire to re-establish her Germanic and thus royal roots may have played a part in her choice. Her affinity for Germany, and particularly for its secret Illumnist societies, would be fully revealed in Consuelo, la Comtesse de Rudolstadt (1843). Her predilection for Poland would be declared in her associations with Polish Illuminists whom she met in the salon of Marie d' Agoult and Franz Liszt in 1835, in particular the poet Mickiewitz,5 a believer in the doctrine of "le Verbe nouveau"6 as expounded by Joseph de Maistre and Emmanuel Swedenborg. Mickiewitz is listed in Nerval's Almanach Cabalistique as a "prophete rouge,"7 along with Lamennais (whom Sand admired), Buchez, Proudhon, Consid6rant, and Pierre Leroux who would greatly influence Sand's societal ideals and who would assist her in defining a republican ideal of the androgyne. For

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Sand, Lamennais and Leroux are "deux des plus grandes intelligences de notre siecle" (O.A., 11: 349). For Nerval, they are part of a cabalistic renewal of Illuminism in nineteenth-century France:

La race des illumines n'est pas eteinte. Toutefois, le sol de France lui a toujours ete moins favorable que celui de I' Allemagne. Mais il est des pays Oll le mysticisme est encore, pour ainsi dire, it l'etat incandescent. L' emigration polonaise nous a dotes de toute une serie de prophetes et d' apotres qui se sont fait parmi nous de nombreux partisans et ont exerce une influence considerable sur le mouvement d'idees qui a trouve son explosion en f6vrier.

Au premier rang il faut placer le poete Mickiewitz, dont le livre des Pelerins polonais fut toute une revelation. (Nerval, IT: 1221)

Bernardin's passage through Poland, then, is not the result of hapless wanderings, but of a very deliberate plan to gain some further esoteric learning which he would later presumably share with his friend Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Sand's affiliation with the Polish circle (and Chopin in particular8) is at once a filiation with her Polish roots and a quest for life's deeper meanings through esoteric doctrines, a journey she had begun by the time of Indiana. Since her grandfather Dupin de Franceuil was, along with Bemardin, an intime of Rousseau (O.A., I: 39) who had composed the recitatifs for Rousseau's Le devin du village (0. A., I: 92), it may be that Sand's literary connection with both authors was suffused with illuminist tendencies from the start.

Sand's rewriting of Paul et Virginie must be understood in light of a utopian genre which arose in the late seventeenth century in France and which would come to full flower in the eighteenth century. In his expansive article on

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the subject,9 Jean-Michel Racault traces the genre from Thomas More's Utopia to Bemardin's novel. In More's title, Racault finds an ambiguity which serves to distinguish Bemardin's text from Sand's rewriting:

L' Utopie, tel est, on le sait, le titre de l'ouvrage publie en 1516 par Thomas More (titre complet: De optima reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia). C'est aussi le nom de I'ile imaginaire dotee d'institutions sociales ideales qui s 'y trouve decrite par le narrateur du livre, Raphael Hythloday. Le terme a ete forge par More a partir du grec. Mais rien ne permet de determiner si le u­initial transcrit le prefix negatif ou- plutOt que le prefixe melioratif eu-, et il semble bien que More joue tres deliberement sur cette ambiguite. D'ou une possible ambivalence etymologique: I 'utopie peut etre aussi bien ou-topos, le 'non lieu,' le pays de nulle part, qu'eu-topos, le 'lieu ou tout est bien,' la cite ideale. (422)

The first meaning of utopia points to its alterity, to its negativity. Its existence is presumably more imaginary than real, more of an intellectual mind game than a possibility. An example of this might be Swift's kingdom of horses in GulliverJ s Travels. The second meaning of utopia is more positivist and marks an attempt to define, demonstrate, and serve as evidence for an ideal polis where social, political, and economic equality exist.

"Or, j'ai besoin d'ideal" (O.A., 11: 130). Though Naomi Schor associates Sand with idealism, the problem of definition remains. What exactly does Sand mean by "ideal"? Does she understand the word etymologically (as specter, as vision)? If so, is there a conjuction in her thinking between "ideal" as vision, as specter, and Pierre Leroux' s universalist ideal as described by Nerval?

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La rectitude des idees sur le socialisme depend, en effet, d'une bonne solution de ces trois questions [1 0 d' oil. vient l'homme? 20 Qu'est-ce qu'une societe humaine? 30 Quelles sont les conditions de la sociabilite 1]. Voici sa reponse: L 'homme procede d'une humanite increee permanente. Ce que nous voyons de lui n' est que comme le simulacre de l'existence. L'etre sensible, intelligent, ne meurt pas, sa personnalite ne fait que cesser d'apparaitre. Apres avoir servi it peupler le vide pendant quelque temps, elle apparait de nouveau, et, sans conserver le souvenir d'une apparition anterieure, apporte cependant le fruit des connaissances qu' elle a pu acquerir sous ses diverses formes.

L'homme sous l'apparence d'un corps, est une triplicite. 11 est sensation, sentiment, connaissance.

Une societe humaine est une communion qui a pour loi: l' egalite, la propriete, la solidarite.

Ainsi la base fondamentale des croyances que Pierre Leroux veut opposer au christianisme est une humanite increee, permanente, perfectible. Sa consequence est une ame qui se perfectionne par une succession de reapparitions dans le monde terrestre. (Nerval, (Euvres IT: 1226-227)

We shall return to this quotation when we discuss the problematic ending to Indiana. But for now, let us examine what Sand meant by "ideal." Perhaps the best definition she offers is to be found in her discussion of amour ideal and amitie ideale. For Sand, it is at the conjunction of both sentiments that the ideal is to be found:

-1' amour ideal resumerait tous les plus

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divins sentiments que nous pouvons concevoir, et pourtant it n' oterait rien it l'amitie ideale. L'amour sera toujours de I' egoi'sme it deux, parce qu' il porte avec lui des satisfactions infinies. L' ami tie est plus desinteressee, elle partage toutes les peines et non tous les plaisirs. ElIe a moins de racines dans la reali te, dans les interets, dans les enivrements de la vie. Aussi est-elle plus rare, meme it un etat tres imparfait, que I' amour it quelque etat qu' on le prenne. (O.A.,II: 130)

If love plays a role in Indiana, it is to show the failure of romantic love and certainly that of married love. Indiana Delmare is married to a violent, taciturn man who will beat her in a fit of jealousy and anger. In her unhappiness, she falls in love with Raymon, an egotistical suitor who, unbeknown to Indiana, is also having a torrid liaison with Indiana's "milk-sister" Noun.1o While Bernardin exults sentimental love between Paul and Virginie, Sand finds sentimenta1love to be deceptive.

This is not to suggest that love is impossible in Sandian fiction. However, Sand's ideal love is far removed from Bemardin's irreality. Paul and Virginie, reared together by two benevolent mothers and symbolically linked by their mothers' milk (and what would become the symbol of French republicanism), share a youthful friendship which will turn into passion at the time of Virginie' s coming of age. Bernardin's utopia is based upon a matriarchal "petite societe" where the role of the ideal mother is capital, reminiscent of Julie at Clarens. All of that is threatened by Virginie's sexuality, her difference. Bernardin's utopia admits the maternal but not the feminine, and though fathers and lovers are not part of this utopia, Paul's own sexual awakening is not as destructive as Virginie's. Equality between the sexes is not possible in Bernardin' s "petite societe." Nor does Bemardin's utopia include social and

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economic equality. The colonial economy of slavery on the island is mirrored in the "petite societe." Neither Mme de la Tour nor Marguerite ever emancipates her slave, and Paul's vision of his future includes a fortune amassed as a slaveholder. Societal levels also never disappear. Mme de la Tour continues to maintain the same societal class divisions even though she is "outre-mer." Her decision to send Virginie back to France is as much a response to her snobbishness as it is a desire to solidify Virginie' s economic future through a promised inheritance. Bernardin's utopia, then, is based solely on the maternal, on two perfect mothers who rear two perfectly behaved children. His "petite societe" is not based upon the principles of political, social, or gender equality. Rather, the influence of Rousseau' s ideas of maternity and education are reflected in the upbringing of Paul and Virginie. Though Bemardin's novel features women prominently, his own ideas about women prevented him from infusing his utopia with true gender equality .

Having adopted the politics of Pierre Leroux, Sand found Bernardin' s system for women stifling. For Bemardin's renewal of the cult of the "great mother," Sand substitutes that of the extraordinary, ideal Woman, who seeks equality with her male peers. In sharp contrast to the idea of the couple found in the dual-named titles of the eighteenth century, such as Sade's Aline et Valcourt and the Abbe Prevost's Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, Sand's novel bears only the name of the woman, and only her given name which is all that society will allow as truly her own. To the notion of nursing milk mothers in Paul et Virginie, Sand opposes the milk sisters, Indiana and Noun, in order to reinforce the idea of sisterhood among women of different races, social levels, and economic levels. And if Bemardin "whitewashes" slavery in his novel, Sand makes it a metaphor for all of the societal ills that plague women. We must recall that it was Sand who wrote the preface to the translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, where she compared marriage to slavery. She also makes the same connection in

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Histoire de ma vie when she describes the legal circumstances leading to her permanent separation from her husband:

Mais ceci n'est rien encore, et l'homme est investi de bien d'autres droits. 11 peut deshonorer sa femme, la faire mettre en prison et la condamner ensuite a rentrer sous sa dependance, a subir son pardon et ses caresses! S'illui epargne ce demier outrage, le pire de tous, il peut lui faire une vie de fiel et d'amertume, lui reprocher sa faute a toutes les heures de sa vie, la tenir etemellement sous l'humiliation de la servitude, sous la terreur des menaces. (0 A., 11: 380)

For Sand, marriage did not belong in utopia. It was not the idyllic state hoped for by Paul and Virginie. Rather, it was a legal contrivance which submitted women to a variety of social ills and constant degradations.

If romantic love and marriage do not represent the "ideal," then "amitie" between a man and a woman, as defined by Sand, holds the potential for the ideal state. In marked contrast to Bemardin, Sand's vision of utopia is attainable, but only by those who subscribe to the principles of "parfaite amitie." Sand's version of "parfaite amitie" is not a reworking of Amyot's "parfaicte amie" and the aesthetic of courtly love. Instead, it reflects Sand's version of the Platonic androgyne, where genders are fused to create a perfect oneness:

.... ne vous croyez pas dispense d' avoir un ami, un ami parfait, c'est-a-dire une personne que vous aimiez assez pour vouloir etre parfait vous-meme envers elle, une personne qui vous soit sacree et pour qui vous soyez egalement sacre. Le grand but que nous devons tous poursuivre, c' est de tuer en nous

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le grand mal qui nOllS ronge, la personnalite. Vous verrez bientot que quand on a reussi a devenir excellent pour quelqu 'un on ne tarde pas a etre meilleur pour tout le monde, et si vous cherchez I' amour ideal, vous sentirez que I' ami tie ideale prepare admirablement le creur a en recevoir le bienfait. (0. A., 11: 131)

If Virginie' s nascent sexuality is the snake in Bemardin' s garden, it is Ralph's sexuality that smolders in Indiana. Ralph first discovers sexual passion while reading Paul et Virginie to the young Indiana. While she only understands the idyllic nature of the text, Ralph reads between the lines and uncovers the passion of the couple reared together. It is a situation that is too close to his own with Indiana:

Ce livre fit tout mon tourment, tandis qu'il faisait votre joie. Vous vous plaisiez a m'entendre lire l'attachement du chien fidele, la beaute des cocotiers et les chants du negre Domingue. Moi, je relisais seul les sentiments de Paul et de son amie, les impetueux soup~ons de I' un, les secretes souffrances de l'autre. Oh! Que je les comprends hien, ces premieres inquietudes de l'adolescence, qui cherche dans son creur I' explication des mysteres de la vie, et qui s' empare avec enthousiasme du premier objet d'amour qui s'offre a lui! (292)

Ralph, Indiana's cousin, will sublimate his passion by becoming her "father": "j'etais heureux, j'etais pere" (293). Yet, Indiana is more than a passionate attraction: "Je comptais sur vous: vous etiez la compagne de ma vie, le reve de ma jeunesse .... " (295). Ralph enters into a loveless marriage with his dead brother's fiancee who loathes him. With her, he will have a son who will die in infancy. The

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death of his wife leaves Ralph a widower, presumably ready to wed Indiana, but, by then, Indiana has married Colonel Delmare.

Ralph 's confession of his abiding love for Indiana takes place shortly before their planned execution of a suicide pact. In a sharp reversal of Bernardin' sending, Sand's lovers choose to die, for death is the gatekeeper to that other world where "parfaite ami tie" is possible: "C' est moi maintenant qui suis ton frere, ton epoux, ton amant pour l'etemite" (302). Ralph's confession is an epiphany for Indiana: Ralph is revealed to her for the first time as her true love. Their first kiss is a passionate kiss, whereupon Ralph carries Indiana to the edge of the precipice.

The traditional reading of the novel's final chapter determines that Ralph and Indiana are saved at the last moment from death because Ralph experiences a dizzy spell and the lovers are unable to complete their pact. But is there another possible reading of Sand's ending, one grounded in her idealism and in Pierre Leroux' s notion of perfectibiliti? If we recall Nerval' s observations about Leroux' s utopian system "Sa consequence est une ame qui se perfectionne par une succession de reapparitions dans le monde terrestre ," then the ending is open to an entirely new reading. Ralph and Indiana have found refuge in a place called le Brule de Saint-Paul, a place described by Sand in supernatural tenns: "De ces rencontres fortuites sont resuItes des jeux bizarres, des impressions hieroglyphiques, des caracteres mysterieux, qui semblent jetes la comme le seing d'un etre sumaturel, ecrit en lettres cabalistiques" (306). Ralph and Indiana have themselves become phantom-like creatures (we must recall once more the etymological meaning of "ideal" as specter, as vision) who seem to exist only for themselves. Those on the island are unsure about their physical existence: "Depuis pres d'un an que le navire la Nahandove avait ramene M. Brown et sa compagne a la colonie, on n'avait pas vu trois fois sir Ralph a la ville; et, quant a madame Delmare, sa retraite avait ete si absolue, que son existence eta it encore une chose problematique pour beau coup d'habitants" (307).

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Ralph himself is rather unsure about how he and Indiana were saved from death, attributing it to a dizzy spell. This ambiguity offers an alternative reading, a hermetic one, based upon Sand's definition of idealism reflecting the theories of Pierre Leroux. If perfection is a state to be attained through successive reapparitions, then the Ralph and Indiana at the end of the story are more perfect than the Ralph and Indiana on the edge of the precipice. They have crossed over to the other side of death, where they have reached a state of Hparfaite amitie" in their own "petite societe ," one based upon the principles of gender equality. Sand's state of utopia rejects the negativity of Paul et Virginie and replaces it with a positivist vision attainable by anyone willing to achieve the blended nature of "parfaite amitie." This is a theme that Sand will echo in Consuelo where she makes full use of the hermetic tradition. Unlike her predecessor Virginie, Indiana achieves a level of serenity and independence. She lives freely as Ralph's "compagne" outside the strictures of marriage. What Sand offers her readers is a glimpse into her version of an egalitarian society , a society in which the vindicated rights of a woman are an essential foundation. Sand's rewriting of Paul et Virginie, then, inaugurates a type of feminist narrative where the heroine is able to achieve an ideal state, a state defined by gender equality .

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Notes

1. We cannot forget that Emma Bovary has been "poisened" in adolescence by reading novels such as Paul et Virginie. Bemardin's novel seems to have haunted Flaubert during his entire literary career.

2. George Sand would have had access to the depositions following the maritime disaster which were published in 1822 by the Baron Milius in his Annales Maritime et .-Coloniales. In 1823 Lemontey had also published Etude litteraire sur la partie historique du roman de Paul et Virginie, accompagnee de pieces officielles relatives au naufrage du vaisseau le Saint-Geran (Paris: A. Andre, 1823 [cf. (Euvres de Lemontey (Paris: Sautelet): V, 349-376]), another possible source for Sand's application of the name Delmare.

3. This disclosure should put to rest some of the less-than­satisfying explanations for Indiana's last name. For instance, James M. Vest in "Fluid Nomenclature, Imagery, and Themes in George Sand's Indiana" has a difficult time resolving the presence of this name associated with a landlubber in the novel: "It may be inferred from his name and his nature that Colonel Delmare is a member of an old seafaring family who has turned his back on the sea. The fact that he shows no affinity for water accentuates the basic incompatibility between Indiana and her husband .... Indiana, daughter of the tropical seas, is unhappily linked in marriage to this landlubber Delmare who has few ties with her favored element" (South Atlantic 44). Fran~oise Massardier-Kenney, though she argues against Vest's association of fluids and women, repeats Vest's erroneous reading of the name Delmare: "Notons que ce sont les noms associes aux personnages masculins qui sont lies a I' eau: que ce soit 'Bellerive,' le nom de la propriete de Ralph, ou le transparent patronyme 'Delmare'" [Nineteenth Century 68]. What can be said more appropriately is that the name

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Delmare gives the impression of being transparent, whereas it is in reality a textual link. to Paul et Virginie.

4. He is mentioned as well in Sand's 1839 preface to Ulia, along with Grethe, Chateaubriand, and Byron.

5. A new reading of Rimbaud' s "Alchimie du Verbe" should be done with a cabalistic subtext functioning throughout the reading.

6. According to NervaI, the term "prophete rouge" refers to a belief proclaimed by "la nouveIle religion slav~" (1223) that Satan was the apostle of the people: "11 est done clair pour nos lecteurs que Lucifer, le Diable rouge, est le meme que les anciens appelaient demogorgon, nom dans lequel on peut retrouver encore la racine demos, peuple" (II: 1219). At a banquet on 17 January 1841, the "elect" gathered to celebrate the coming of the new jubilee which would be marked by the revealing of "un homme de genie," according to Joseph de Maistre: "L'apparition de cet homme ne saurait etre eloignee et peut-etre existe-t-il deja. Celui-Ia sera fameaux et mettra fin au XVIII e siecle qui existe toujours, car les siecles intellectuels ne se reglent pas sur le calendriers comme les siecles proprement dits" (cited by Nerval, 1223). These "elect" were together to recreate the Last Supper. According to NervaI, a speaker proclaimed that "la lumiere du Christ qui a dfi luire sur le monde pendant mille ans et plus, mais qui, par cette expression meme du Sauveur, ne peut atteindre a l'an deux mille, serait aujourd'hui eteinte et aurait rendu necessaire la venue d'un septieme envoye. Les deux mille annees lunaires ne devant pas tarder a s'accomplir, c'est a la moitie du XIXe siecle (1850) qu'est reservee cette grace d'un jubilee bi-millenaire ou le ciel, sollicite par les ames elues, doit pour ainsi dire descendre sur la terre en coIlones lumineuses propres a dissiper les tenebres epaisses des derniers temps" (Nerval, 1223-24). It is interesting to speculate as to the impact the beliefs of intellectuals had on the acceptance of utopian socialism from 1830-1848, in the

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widespead popularity of Karl Marx' s Das Kapital (1848) and in the Revolution of 1848 in France. We know that Sand was profoundly distressed and disappointed in the failure of this revolution and that she feared for her own safety. Thereafter, she retreated to Nohan. We can further speculate on the esoteric meaning of the color red as a revolutionary color. Is it associated in the minds of some leaders with the "diable rouge" and the coming of the people's millenium? Are the increasingly found references in French literature to the devil (we can add to the list Sand's own La mare au diable) and to hell to be understood as allusions to this coming millenium of "the people"? Jules Michelet, at the end of ILl sorciere (1862), associates the scientific advances of modernity with Satan and envisions a future where fraternity reigns: "L'humanite entiere a, pour la premiere fois, de minute en minute, la conscience d' elle-meme, une communion d'amesL .. 0 divine magie!. .. Si Satan fait cela, il faut lui rendre hommage, dire qu' il pourrait bien etre un des aspects de Dieu" (Michelet, Sorciere 306). Let us not forget that Rimbaud's "Voyelles" from Une saison en enfer, repeated in "Alchimie du Verbe" declare the "I rouge." Suzanne Bernard, in her notes to the Gamier edition of 1960, refers to a!1 occultist interpretation of the color red propounded by Eliphas Levi whose work was known by George Sand: "la vie rayonnante va toujours du noir au rouge, en passant par le blanc; et la vie absorbee redescend du rouge au noir, en traversant le meme milieu" (406). It is interesting to note here that the name of Sand's heroine Indiana begins with the vowel "I rouge" and ends with the "A noir."

7. Sand's first extended reference to Chopin in Histoire de ma vie is also a rather curious reference to her belief in metempsychosis: "Il est une autre ame, non moins belle et pure dans son essence, non moins malade et troublee dans ce monde, que je retrouve avec autant de placidite dans mes entretiens avec les morts, et dans mon attente de ce monde meilleur ou nous devons nous reconnaitre tous au rayon

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d 'une lumiere plus vive et plus divine que celle de la terre" (OA.,II: 416).

8. "Paul et Virginie et l'utopie: de la 'petite societe' au my the collectif." Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 242 (1986): 419-471.

9. I have explored the nature of the "doubling" of Indiana and Noun in "A Psychoanalytic Study of the Double in the novels of George Sand."

10. A new reading of Rimbaud's "Alchimie du Verbe" should be done with a cabalistic subtext functioning throughout the reading.

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WORKS CITED OR CONSULTED

Baron Milius, Annales Maritimes et Coloniales. (Depositions . des survivants du naufrage du Saint-Geran.) 1822.

Gevrey, Fran~oise. "Paul et Virginie et Un caur simple: resonances d'une 'humble pastorale' dans un conte 'bonhomme.'" Travaux de litterature 5 (1992): 267-84.

Lemontey. Etude litteraire sur la partie historique du roman de Paul et Virginie, accompagnee de pieces officielles relatives au naufrage du vaisseau le Saint-Geran. Paris: A. Andre, 1823. [Cf. lEuvres de Lemontey (paris: Sautelet) V, 349-376]

Massardier-Kenney, Fran~oise."Indiana: Lieux et personnages fe min in s." N in eteen th-C e ntu ry French Studies 19 (1990): 65-71.

Michelet, Iules. La Sorciere. Paris: Gamier Flammarioo, 1966.

Nerval, Gerard de. CEuvrqs. vol.II. Ed. Albert Beguin et Jean Richer. Paris: Editions de la Pleiade, 1961.

Panofsky, Edwin. "Et in Arcadia Ego." Philosophy and History. Essays Presented to Ernst Cassirer. Ed. Raymond Klibansky and H. J. Paton. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1936.223-254.

Racault, lean-Michel. "Paul et Virginie et I 'utopie: de la 'petite societe' au my the collectif." Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 242 (1986): 419-471.

Richards, Sylvie L. F. "A Psychoanalytic Study of the Double in the Novels of George Sand." West Virginia George Sand Conference Papers (1981): 45-53.

Saint-Pierre, Bemardin de. Paul et Virginie. Bd. P. Trahard. Paris: Gamier Freres, 1964.

Sand, George. Indiana. Ed. Hermann H. Thomton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935.

lEuvres autohiogrqphiques, ed. Georges Lubin. 2 volumes. Paris: Editions de la PIeiade, 1970-71.

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Schor, Naomi. George Sand and Idealism. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.

Vest, James M. "Fluid Nomenclature, Imagery, and Themes in George Sand's Indiana." South Atlantic Review 46 (May 1981): 43-54.